Welcome to How They Pulled It Off, where we take a close look at one particularly challenging aspect of a home design and get the nitty-gritty details about how it became a reality.

Architects Miroslava Brooks and Daniel Markiewicz of FORMA, a bicoastal architecture studio known for thoughtful homes with a playful side, envisioned a sculptural cube on a hill for their shared retreat in Hillsdale, New York—but added one feature that pushes its boundaries, blurring the line between inside and out. It’s a ground-floor porch that feels both sheltered and open, with trapezoidal cutouts framing views toward the hillside.

Rather than tacking on a traditional porch—which would compromise the purity of their cubic design—the pair put one directly into the base, making the feature integral to the overall shape. “You’re outside and you can see everything, but you are also kind of protected,” says Markiewicz. “It’s like a big wood blanket around you as you’re having your coffee.”

What began as a dream to build and co-own an efficient, “teeny tiny” cabin came with familiar pandemic-era woes. Construction and sourcing delays reshaped the project, resulting in three redesigns and conversations with nearly 40 upstate contractors. It took five years, but eventually took form as a three-bedroom, 1,474-square-foot house on a 700-square-foot foundation.

Today, those hiccups feel like a distant past from the vantage of the porch. With generous openings on three sides, floors just barely above grade, and no railings obstructing sight lines, the views are clear and open to its surroundings without losing a sense of intimacy. In the mornings, eastern light floods the porch; by the afternoon, it’s shaded with views of illuminated treetops.

From the outside, the partial void defines the cubic volume; half the house lands firmly on the ground, stacking three bedrooms. The half where the porch lives looks as if lifted up on two legs. “The relationship is much more playful, like an animated character sitting on top of a hill,” says Brooks. “The geometry provided these different readings and also different ways of moving into the house.”

It may be a cube, but the porch itself is dynamic. It serves three functions at once: it’s a direct connection to nature, it lifts living spaces above for higher views, and it creates a welcoming entrance. “It was both for entry into the house, like a foyer or part of the procession, but exterior as well,” says Markiewicz.

Think of it as the cherry on top—or the pineapple on the bottom—of the whole project: a simple yet unexpected porch that blurs the boundary between indoor and outdoor living.

How they pulled it off: A ground-floor deck that’s indoor/outdoor

Construction started with the base, digging for and actually pouring the foundation. They designated 26 feet by 13 feet and six inches for the porch with a quarter inch (per foot) slope for drainage.
One crucial step was patience: they left the area as an open concrete slab until the end of construction, so as to avoid foot traffic damaging the porch. “It was a great work area for them,” says Brooks. The sheltered space allowed the contractors to set up shop to cut wood and store materials when it rained.
Trapezoidal cutouts on three sides play off of pentagonal windows above the porch. The south and north openings are smaller (nine feet and eight inches wide on the bottom, four feet and six inches on top), while the eastern opening is the largest (19 feet and six inches wide on the bottom, eight feet and eight inches on top) and frames the best view.
At just over eight feet, the ceiling is far lower than the soaring living room above it, but the height creates a more intimate feel inside the porch. At the same time, the floor sits only a few inches above grade, blurring the line between inside and outside.
Western red cedar planks clad the porch’s walls and ceiling, treated with a protective clear coat. “The outside of the house is stained dark gray,” says Markiewicz, who chose Behr’s Semitransparent Stain and Sealer in Slate. “The interior of the porch is left natural so that you have a kind of warmth to the carve-out.”
Walls and ceilings use six-foot-wide, three-quarter-inch-thick boards. They used the same dimensions across the exterior to make the porch fully integrated. “We [didn’t want it to feel] like an addition or a separate thought, but something that is really part of the whole design.” The floorboards, naturally, are different (five-quarter-inch-by-six-inch premium grade boards), also in Western red cedar.
The cedar cladding runs continuously across the floors, ceilings, and walls to create a unified wrapping.

When the house was finished, and Brooks and Markiewicz visited with their families, the porch offered space for reflection. “You feel like you’re sitting in your living room, but you’re outside and you hear the birds—it’s very calm and cozy,” says Brooks. “I think that moment of realization was like, ‘Okay, we did a nice job,’ and you really appreciate what you did and the struggles that you went through.”

Project Credits:

Architects: Miroslava Brooks, Daniel Markiewicz, Kyle Troyer / FormaNY

Contractor: Kalmen Construction

Structural Engineer: W.D. Hill Engineering, PLLC

Photography: Devon Banks

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How They Pulled It Off: An Unconventional Porch That’s Both Indoors and Out